Burning Man takes place not far from Reno-Fernley Raceway, so we figured we needed some sort of Burning Man-themed penalty. Thus was born the Playa Punishment. To get this much-dreaded penalty, the miscreant must first roll a 10 on the LeMons Craps Table Of Misfortune (roll a 12 and you get the even-more-dreaded Gangsta Funeral, which involves an entire 40-dog of Olde English 800 getting dumped inside your car; more on that later).

When you get the Playa, first your team must set up LeMons Justice Lieberman's somewhat icky old Coleman tent. Then your whole team (be it 3 members or 10) crawls inside and we toss a case of bottled water inside after you. Then comes the boombox, loaded with The Worst Techno Song Ever Recorded (DJ Hidro-Ponik's "Hadron Particles"), and you sit there for a long, long time. Most teams really, really hated this one.

However, one team enjoyed the hell out of the Playa, complaining only that the music wasn't loud enough!

I checked out the snake charming, burlesque performances, accordion music, and cotton-candy booths inside the warehouse, and it was all pretty entertaining… but I was there for the cars. My primary mission: to convince these art car builders to bring their creations to the Goin' For Broken 24 Hours Of LeMons race, since the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir was such a hit at the Gator-O-Rama LeMons. Here's what I found:

The Boiler Bar is having a May Day celebration at their Magnolia Street HQ, starting at 8:00 PM tonight. It's unclear how many art cars will show up, but the Marriage Wrecker and Neverwas LB&O Trolley should be there in addition to the Golden Mean, and there will also be "Snake Charming, CanCan Girls, Belly, Glass, Fire & May Pole Dancing, Burlesques, Balancing Acts, and Old Timey Music." I'll be there, trying to recruit art car builders for the 24 Hours Of LeMons. Give that snail a roll cage and some more horsepower and it could totally compete on the track!
The Boiler Bar

No, this isn't a ploy by Hummer to finally break through into the hippie subconscious. Artists at this year's Burning Man festival have built a gigantic Hummer, named the Bummer, meant to get us thinking about consumerism or something. [SFGate, Photo: Frederic Larson/The Chronicle ]

The entire thing is hand-built out of a combination of scavenged parts and steel. The 500-pound machine centers on four huge-diameter wheels built out of salvaged drainage pipe, modified golf cart wheels and chopped up old tires. The four peddlers generate power, which is combined to turn the right rear wheel — the left rear runs on a separate axle and does the stopping with a disc brake. Steering is done with a chain-driven drag link and pitman arm system.

It won't be winning any drag races, but the Dogsled will be cruising Woodward this year alongside its gasoline road mates, undoubtedly collecting a heck of a lot of stares and questions. If you're interested, you can check out the build blog for the beast at Dogsled homepage.

I'll just let the man himself explain how he got this giant beast to move:

The machine is powered by a 454 cubic inch chevy V-8 married to a modified TH400 trans coupled to two klune extreme under drive planetary gear boxes, uses a rockwell 2 1/2 ton military axle to supply power to the leg crank shafts, The final drive ratio is 125:1. The legs are supported on a 4 link system and uses 56 pivot points and 114 bearings..

Now what would be truly awesome is if it stored miniature spider walkers that could deploy on the fly like a escape pods. [Walking Beast via Gizmowatch]